


(if it was) anyone but you

by PenzyRome



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, SO! here we are, and i have to do everything in this damn house, and the jacobs family is. there but not a big part so i won't tag them, davey and spot deserve better characterization than "nervous and nerdy" and "short and angry", some fluff! some introspection! some banter! it's a fun time, they're both immigrants and That Is That
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 14:12:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17747372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenzyRome/pseuds/PenzyRome
Summary: Spot wouldn't say he's ever the type to be confused or nervous. Except, of course, when it comes to Davey, but when has Davey not been his exception to everything?





	(if it was) anyone but you

**Author's Note:**

> hi! so yes i know it has been two weeks since i updated slaying giants. however. uhhhhhhh here's 4k of canon era spavey that no one asked for? thanks for your time. (also i wrote this while listening to "the only exception" by paramore on repeat if that gets u into the Vibe)

It’s typical, frankly, the way they meet. Spot doesn’t fall for anyone, but when he breaks that rule, it’s always as inconvenient for him as possible.

He’s hawking near a bunch of office buildings when a flood of boys in uniforms leaves one of them, and Spot seizes the chance like no one else can. He knows the paper upside down and right side up at that point, he knows how to twist it so a bunch of boys with change burning holes in their pockets and dirty, violent minds will buy the same paper that men in suits and ties will look up from their pocket watches for.

(Spot doesn’t actually know if most of them have pocket watches. He assumes so, but he isn’t rich enough to know.)

After a few perfectly gory and demented headlines, he’s got a new stack of pennies jingling along with his steps, and even some nickels and dimes from boys too high and mighty to carry the lowest of change but too immature to resist a little blood.

Most of them have drained out, besides a few smaller boys walking along with their teachers.

And then there’s one sore thumb, sticking out behind.

He’s got to be Spot’s age, but he’s taller by quite a bit, even with his shoulders hunched. And God, Spot doesn’t know what it is; the way his eyes flicker from side to side, or the way his jacket is patched and frayed and let out in ways that tell Spot that he’s been wearing it through several awkward growth spurts, or the way that he just doesn’t seem to hold himself the same way as anyone else wearing that jacket. But whatever it is, Spot yells over at him without a second thought.

“Hey kid, buy a pape?”

He looks over at Spot, and Spot holds one up, carefully folded and held sideways so the real headline is hidden. “Real bloody massacre in Queens yesterday!”

Spot’s close enough now that this damaged goods excuse for a schoolboy doesn’t have to shout. “I don’t have any money, sorry.” His tone is polite, but Spot sees the way his hands fiddle with each other, and he decides it’s alright to press.

“What kinda schoolboy ain’t got any change?”

Damaged Goods snorts. “The kind who can’t afford to lose it.”

“What kinda schoolboy weeps over a couple pennies?”

His lips are pursed, and Spot doesn’t know of he wants to celebrate whatever kind of game he’s winning. 

There’s a pause before Damaged Goods says, “The kind of schoolboy whos parents and sister’ve been working their tails off since we got here, based on the pipe dream that I’ll ever be someone.”

If Spot’s being honest, he wasn’t expecting Damaged Goods to be. Honest, that is. He knew there’s something, but usually, when he presses anyone about the something, he ends up with a fist aimed right at his nose.

Whenever someone  _ is  _ honest like that, he takes it as the sign to ditch. Honest people aren’t his kind, he can’t trust anyone who wouldn’t lie through their teeth when it got down to it all. It’s happened before, when someone dropped something like that only a few sentences into a conversation, and Spot’s shrugged and walked away every time.

And yet… it’s kind of fascinating, to see that lack of walls around someone needs them.

So he presses further, since he figures he isn’t getting punched quite yet.

“Why you over here anyways?”

“They brought us over here on a trip. To…” He paused to recall the words. “Acquaint us with the city, they said.”

“You ain’t from New York, huh?” Damaged Goods’s jaw tightens, and Spot tries again. “Not from America?”

“Why do you need to know?”

“Hey, when your pals turn me down, they ain’t nice about it. Maybe I like a guy with manners, how ‘bout that?”

Damaged Goods doesn’t look like he buys the excuse, but Spot keeps pressing. A little part of his mind thinks it’s weird-- anyone else in the world, he would’ve given up after a word out of this kid’s mouth, but there’s something. He doesn’t know what, but it’s something.

“So, not from America?”

He gets a sideways look, but still, “No.”

“Where, then?”

A moment of hesitation. “Poland.”

“Puerto Rico.”

“Did I ask?”

“Nah, but it’s nice to respond.” Spot sticks the paper he’d held out just a minute before in his bag and turns, hands in his pockets, so he can walk backwards and sort of observe him as they go.

Damaged Goods smiles, hesitantly. “I suppose.”

“So your folks got you down as a lifeboat?”

He looks offended. “They just want the best for our family, it isn’t selfish. It’s why we’re here at all.”

“Yeah, seems like it’s goin’ swell.”

His jaw tightens. “You don’t know my family.”

“Sure don’t.”

Damaged Goods frowns at Spot, his eyebrows slanting down to make a little crease in between them. “You don’t make many friends, do you?”

“Do you?” Spot says, and in that moment, he really does think he’s about to get punched. But then the anger washes away and hell, Spot can deal with angry but he always hates it when someone gets sad.

“No,” he says eventually, then shakes himself off. “Shouldn’t you be selling your papers?”

“Eh, your rich pals near cleared me out. Not pals, though?”

“Not in years.”

“Hm. Shame.”

“Yeah, around the time they started realizing I was sneaking my second helping of any dinner they served out in my pocket, they stopped inviting me over.”

Spot barks out a laugh, and Damaged Goods’s eyes sparkle.

“A regular thief!” he says, and Damaged Goods just holds up one hand.

“My mama needs it more than their lapdog,” he protests, and it’s almost like he’s gone caterpillar to butterfly right before Spot’s eyes. 

They grin at each other, and it’s so absolutely wrong that Spot can feel his reputation dying before his eyes; Spot Conlon said hello to someone, Spot Conlon made small talk, Spot Conlon smiled!

But it’s nice, kind of. This boy, who’s got Manhattan tenement written all over his jacket’s patches and the lack of any lunch pail and the way his eyes are always checking his surroundings, but also doesn’t know Spot’s name, or his reputation, or the Brooklyn streets, is next to intoxicating. It must be what happens when all your company is either gamblers or kids you have to watch like your own: when you meet somebody that’s interesting, and polite, but still has a little bit of spark and a hint of a backbone, maybe you want to keep chatting, milk as much as you can out of somebody that isn’t afraid of you. To see what it’s like to talk to someone who’s different, but not really.

Or maybe Spot’s just gone mad and been replaced by somebody who thinks schoolboys with just a hint of freckles are the neatest thing in the world.

Eventually, they find themselves at Brooklyn Bridge, and Spot stops.

“Well, Manhattan ain’t my turf.”

Damaged Goods nods. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Eh, stop lying.”

“It was! Hey, if I’m ever back over here, I’ll have a penny on me.”

Spot laughs, and it sounds so surprised that he’s a little ashamed of it. “Good of you. I’ll see you…” He trails off and tilts his head, expecting. 

“David.”

“I’ll see you, Davey.” Spot tips his hat, and starts to turn.

“I’ll see  _ you,  _ Spot Conlon.”

He stops in his tracks, and when Damaged Goods-- Davey-- laughs, he keeps walking, feeling his face go hot up to his ears.

So much for not knowing him.

 

No matter what Spot had said, he hadn’t expected to see Davey again. But still, a few weeks later, there he is, holding out a penny with a smile that’s nervous and lovely all at once.

“Dave, hey!” Spot says, and all the nervousness vanishes at once. 

“Hey. I told you I’d bring a penny.”

“And you did, look at it!” Spot takes it and pockets it before he hands the paper over. Davey opens it, inspecting it critically, and Spot figures he’d made enough to eat as well as a newsie can. They fall in step, and a chat feels like the next natural step.

“So you cross over lots, huh?”

Davey looks up from the second page, surprised. “Oh, uh. Not much, really, but a friend of my mama’s just had a baby, and I brought some hand-me-downs over.”

Spot raises one eyebrow. “Your folks saved some little pants what, sixteen years?”

Davey shrugs one shoulder, flipping the page. “They were mine, then my brother’s, so we kept saving them. Never know when somebody’s gonna need something.”

“Guess so. Same with your jacket, huh?”

Davey looks down self-consciously, like he thinks he’s still wearing it. “Yeah, guess so.”

Spot can sense it, the all-invading and all-conquering worry, so he skips over it. “Gotta be honest, Dave, didn’t think I’d see you back over here. Not that I ain’t glad, but it’s a surprise.”

Davey rolls his eyes. “I’m just glad you remembered my name.”

“Hey, you don’t leave a fella’s head.”

He looks skeptical, but he accepts it.

Spot keeps going. “And you pulled that trick at the end, bastard. How’d you know?”

“Hearsay,” Davey says vaguely. “And you’ve got the mole.”

Spot’s free hand goes up to his face, right next to the corner of his mouth. “Shit, how famous am I, huh?”

“I know some newsies,” Davey says, and it doesn’t answer his question, but it brings up a new one.

“Who?”

“Crutchie, mainly, if you know him.” Spot has to purse his lips to not show any response, and Davey continues, seeming to have missed it. “And a few of the gals. Jojo, Buttons, they know my sister.”

Spot stops dead in his tracks. “She’s Sarah? Sarah Jacobs? Yae high, temper like a storm?”

Davey turns around to face him and smiles. “You know her?”

“Christ, you could say. She’s real fierce, you know that?”

“Yes, I do. Sixteen years of proof.”

If anyone else said it, it would have made Spot feel dumb. But Davey’s smiling, and he thinks it might be the first time anybody with a family’s succeeded in not making him feel like shit.

 

And it goes on from there. One way or another, they end up finding each other-- Spot “happening” to pass by schools that are getting out whenever he’s in Manhattan on business, Davey winding up in Brooklyn more that he says he usually is. It’s nice, really, to have a friend who isn’t spending half his time running from the cops or praying that their clothes dry out by four in the morning.

He finds himself talking with Crutchie again, eventually, and he decides to get a little insider scoop. 

“You know Davey Jacobs, yeah?”

Crutchie looks surprised but not shocked. “You the latest street rat he managed to trap?”

“‘Scuse me?”

Crutchie laughs. “Joking. Yeah, I know him. He doesn’t seem like your kinda pal.”

Spot shrugs one shoulder. “He’s nice enough.”

“Hey, high praise from the king of Brooklyn.”

“Yeah, yeah.” There’s silence for a moment. “So what, he ain’t tough enough to hang around with me?”

“Nah, I just think it’s weird. Davey’s all…” Crutchie waves his hand. “Y’know. A little proud. Uptight, there it is. And you…”

Spot glares at him, but Crutchie, having long ago lost any fear of him, just says, “Y’know, mean bastard that you are, I would think Davey’d be scared off by now.”

Spot frowns to himself, trying to reconcile the image of Crutchie’s Davey-- kind but uptight, nervous-- with his Davey-- polite, but with hidden snark and a little bit of fire.

Crutchie shrugs. “Maybe he’s different ‘round you.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Is Davey different around him? He wouldn’t know. He doesn’t know Davey around anyone else but him. But does he act different around Davey? Yes, probably. Around Davey, he doesn’t need to be a leader, or loud, or confident or angry or anything but just… a person. Davey doesn’t need him to be anything else but himself.

So no, he doesn’t act different around Davey. He  _ is _ different around Davey, and he’s fine with that.

 

The end of winter melts into spring, and March into April, and somehow, it takes until somewhere in the middle of that month for Spot to realize that his feelings are, perhaps, less than ideal.

He isn’t stupid, he knows feelings  _ like  _ that are less than ideal. He rules every street rat in Brooklyn, he knows the consequences like the back of his hand.

But it isn’t until they’re sitting on the docks, Davey soaked to the bone after Spot had pushed him into the water, and Davey’s throwing his head back to laugh that Spot feels his breath sticking in his throat.

He pushes it to the back of his head so quickly that he manages to convince himself that it was a hallucination until the end of the day, after every newsie is present and accounted for under a roof, and Spot is trying to get at least a wink of sleep.

And Davey, the absolute  _ asshole  _ that he is, keeps showing up in Spot’s head, that same laugh over and over.

Spot Conlon doesn’t lose his breath over anyone. His face doesn’t go hot, he doesn’t stammer, he doesn’t spout poetry, and he sure as hell doesn’t pine, especially not over a  _ guy. _

And yet… Davey Jacobs.

Yeah, that’s definitely a problem.

 

For all Davey’s talk about his little brother worshipping Spot, he’s never quite believed it. Spot is fifty percent improvisation and fifty percent false confidence, there isn’t any real bit of him that thinks he’s worth admiration.

The first time he enters the Jacobs family’s home, it’s clear he’s been wrong to not trust every word out of Davey’s mouth.

The place looks exactly like he’d described-- the worn-down dining table, the mattress in the corner, the tired, loving smiles. And Les, too, is just like Davey had promised; his mouth drops open as soon as Davey introduces Spot by name, and he fires off questions for the rest of dinner until Davey tells his mother they’re going to “the roof” and Spot thanks her for dinner while Davey drags him by the wrist up the fire escape.

“Pretty,” Spot says, whispering despite their being alone. Davey’s eyes stay fixed on the moon, slowly rising in the sky.

“Yeah,” he says, then looks back over to Spot, snapped out of a trance. “My family likes you.”

“Damn,” Spot jokes, and smiles when Davey laughs. “They’re real nice. What you deserve.”

“What would Les say, finding out that you’re just a big sap?”

“You ain’t gonna tell,” Spot says dismissively, and Davey raises one eyebrow. 

“How do you know?”

“I got too much dirt on you.” Spot elbows Davey in the ribs, and Davey grins.

“You say that like I couldn’t take you off your  _ throne _ ,” he makes little quotes with his fingers, and Spot shoves him lightly, “with all the shit I know.”

(Spot likes it when Davey curses; it’s an open contradiction of everything other people think about Davey, a little sign that Spot has been right all along about the fire inside him. It’s exciting.)

“Yeah, but you like me too much to play traitor.”

“And you like me too much,” Davey fires back, poking him in the shoulder with one finger. “So it’s just between us.”

“Between us,” Spot says, casting a look down to where Davey’s hand has found a place next to Spot’s leg.

 

Kissing Davey Jacobs is a weird experience, that’s for damn sure. 

 

It doesn’t get any less weird, but it does, if that makes sense.

It gets less surprising, at least. Around the fifth time, Spot’s expecting it, and ignores the rational thoughts he has in favor of enjoying what he has.

And he does-- enjoy it, at least. They kiss in little hidden spots all over Manhattan and Brooklyn, once making the trip over to Miss Medda Larkin’s, and the way Medda grins and teases Davey as the two of them sneak in makes Spot think he has stories to tell.

It’s nice, having something that’s simple. Maybe that’s the appeal of Davey, the simplicity-- around him, Spot isn’t a leader, or terrifying, or a rumor. He’s Spot, and he likes that. He likes  _ Davey.  _ He likes him too much for their collective good, but he pushes that back to the part of his brain that he’ll leave alone until it comes back to punch him in the face.

 

Well, extra-fucking-extra, it punches him in the face.

Davey has been out of school for a week, at most, when he shows up to their meeting place pale and shaking.

“My father’s hurt,” he says quietly, and Spot literally feels his heart drop. That is the exact moment when he knows things have gotten out of hand-- when he realizes that he really cares about Davey, and his  _ family.  _ Like they’re his. Like he will ever know them past when Davey inevitably leaves him behind for a better life and a nice Jewish girl, or other, prettier boys who didn’t curl their r’s.

 

After that, it kind of feels like a blur. Davey becoming a newsie and telling Spot not to worry, that he’d keep his head down, that by the way  _ Jack Kelly  _ was his selling partner now, so much for keeping his head down, but everything was fine, really, and then--

“Meet my selling partner, Dave.”

Spot blinks down at Davey, then manages a, “Charmed.”

“Likewise,” Davey says, and Spot is impressed by how well he keeps his cool. “As Jack was saying, Spot, we need you on our side. Brooklyn is a, a, a rallying symbol for the rest of the city. We get you on board, we get the whole city.”

Spot tips his head back. “Smart, huh?” He says to Kelly, hoping that Davey will get that it’s just power, that he doesn’t look down on him enough to talk right over him, that it’s the same kind of manufactured nonchalance every leader has to learn.

“Yeah, I am,” Davey says, and Spot nearly breaks out laughing right then and there.

He understands power, all right. If it wasn’t for Kelly, the rest of Spot’s crew, and the fact that Davey basically just swept out Spot’s leg while he was trying to kick, Spot’d probably have kissed him.

“So what’s the word?” Kelly says, having recovered from his moment of shock quickly enough. “You in or out?”

Oh, right. Spot is a leader.

“How’s I supposed to know you ain’t gonna fold?”

“You got our word,” Kelly says, without much room for debate, but Spot still rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, I’s gonna need better if you want Brooklyn in this mess.”

“The fuck else can we give?” That is what Spot needed-- Kelly getting angry, because as soon as Kelly gets angry, anything he had over Spot goes out the window.

“Tell you what, they try soakin’ you, and you don’t run.  _ Then  _ you got Brooklyn.”

“Fine!”

“Fine.”

 

And then selling in the morning, meeting a new kid, and then Rafaela running up, panting.

She collapses onto her knees, holding her stomach, and Spot kneels down next to her, a hand on her shoulder.

She looks up in tears.

“Sarah Jacobs says Manhattan got soaked real bad by the bulls, and they ain’t seen Kelly or Crutchie, and Jojo isn’t waking up!” She throws herself into Spot’s shoulder, sobbing, and he feels his blood chill until it freezes to ice inside him, his heart slowing to a halt.

He’s definitely in too deep.

 

He waits outside on the fire escape for more than an hour, telling any newsie that passed to get Davey, until he finally climbs out and crosses his arms.

“I thought you’d show up, but I wasn’t sure.”

“Course I showed--” he flinches. “Dave, what the hell’d they do?”

Davey’s fingers jump self-consciously to his eye, swollen and bruised. “I’m fine, Spot.”

“Like hell. Christ, Davey.” Spot steps forward and cups his jaw, inspecting his eye. “It’s all, right?”

“Just that and my arm, Spot, really.” Davey takes Spot’s hand and holds it at his chest. “Thanks for showing.” Then his face changes, and he drops his hand quickly, like it burns him to the bone.

“Davey?”

Davey presses his lips together and shakes his head. “I can’t, Spot.”

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t thank you for showing up after all this.” Spot tries to talk, but Davey shakes his head so fast Spot can almost picture his brain smashing from side to side. “Spot, Crutchie’s in the Refuge. Jack’s  _ gone,  _ we can’t find him. I can’t…” He covers up his eyes, his fingers scrunching over his face, and Spot just watches, terrified, as Davey breaks down. “I can’t send everyone back out there alone. I’m all there is left, Spot. All there is.” He chokes out a sob, and in a split second, falls forward into Spot’s arms.

Spot holds him tight, because in moments like this, that’s all he knows how to do. He knows how to protect and how to attack, and attacking clearly hasn’t worked.

He holds him until his heartbeat slowed down, and he pressed a kiss to his hair. (A rare occurrence, given Davey’s extra eight inches, so Spot savored it, despite the moment.) “You’s doing fine, Davey. You’s doing so good, promise.”

Davey pulls himself back so he can kiss him, cradling Spot’s face in his hands like he’s something precious, and god, even after months, if it doesn’t melt Spot to mush.

It’s dark enough that they can, but Davey still pulls back after only a second or two.

“Spot, I need you to know that I’m in this whatever happens.”

Does he mean the strike? Whatever mixed-up shit they have? Spot doesn’t know.

“But I’m not sending Manhattan back out there if we don’t have you. And I dunno if I can do…” He motions between the two of them. “This. If I don’t have you.” He backs up slowly, wringing his hands. “So, y’know. There’s that.”

He backs up until he hits the wall, and climbs back through the window, blinking fast. “I’ll see you, Spot.”

And Spot is there on the fire escape, with the wind eating away at his arms and nose, feeling like he’s made a million mistakes that he isn’t sure how to fix.

 

He starts with fixing the biggest one.

 

“So,” Davey says, staring out at the skyline, “you showed.”

Davey holds out his hand, a clear question posed in the motion. Spot takes it, and Davey turns towards him, grinning.

“What, you think I wouldn’t?” Spot spares him a smile. “You’s dumber than you look, Davey.”

“And y’know,” Spot tries, “it wasn’t just ‘cause of you. I--”

Davey pulls him forward to kiss him, and Spot’s glad he doesn’t have to think of an excuse.

Of course it was Davey. What else in the world would it have been?

 

“So,” Davey says, “you’re different as a leader.”

That’s a fact in Spot’s brain, but he thinks for a moment about how to respond.

Davey standing up there, desperate for words, silencing the whole crowd, staring at Jack through the mob, at a loss for words. Davey snapping back at Pulitzer, back at Spot, filling to the brim with grit and with a spine like steel in only a few days. Jaw tight, hands in fists, back straight, chin up.

When he’s leading, he isn’t Crutchie’s Davey, that much is obvious. Crutchie’s Davey is kind and collected but also nervous, and never the type to riot and shout and cause a whole damn strike.

But he isn’t Spot’s Davey, either. Spot’s Davey is just as firey and brave, but also has easy-going smiles and bright laughter and kisses that left Spot breathless for the first time in his life. He’s happier.

(And lord knew he isn’t his family’s David.)

“Yeah,” Spot says after a moment. “You is too.”

 

Working the docks is a far cry from being king of every kid with a nickel to their name and something to prove on the Brooklyn streets, but Spot likes it all the same.

He likes it for the same reason he had liked Davey-- it’s simple. Folks know his name, and he knows theirs, and he has the newsie he buys a paper from every morning, and he has his shit apartment, and that is that and that is his.

Actually, that isn’t true. He likes it because it’s simple, yes, but that wasn’t why he had liked Davey.

It had taken a few years to figure it out, a year or so with nothing but a few pictures from the papers and his own brain.

Davey hadn’t been simple. Davey had been a whole world of confusing things that had made Spot’s head and heart hurt more than anything in the world.

And yet he’d still liked him. He’d still loved him, maybe, if that was even possible. Because Davey hadn’t been simple, yeah, but he’d been Davey, and Davey had been kind of the whole world.

He shakes his head for a moment to shake himself out of any kind of mid-lunch-break spiral, and starts to stand up.

Then, “Hey, stranger.”

And Christ, it isn’t like he even has to turn around, it isn’t as if he doesn’t know that voice by heart and hear it in his dreams.

But he does anyways, and he couldn’t stop himself from grinning.

Scratch the past tense. Davey  _ is  _ kind of the entire world.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you guys enjoyed that??? idk i'm just kinda dead inside right now and i have to finish my essay BUT i am proud of how quickly i churned this out, ngl.   
> so yeah!!! if you want to chat with me about anything or if u wanna make my heart go !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my tumblr.hell is @penzyroamin!!! there's a post for this fic on there, so if you rbed it it would really help me out!!!!  
> (p.s. if u comment i'll owe u a breakfast bar and one (1) reese's piece)   
> (also in case slaying giants isn't updated by valentine's day i hope any people who are in a relationship or want to be have a lovely day with the person they adore and that anybody who is currently very much enjoying single life buys themselves some pink candy and has an equally awesome day!!!)  
> have a wonderful day and thank u for reading <3


End file.
